First and foremost, we believe people can change. When we make a mistake we need to admit it and then not run from it, but stay and work to fix the mistake. And though no one can undo the past, we can balance the scales by doing good deeds and earning back our own self-respect, decency, and a legitimate place in mainstream society.

We believe that people can learn to live drug free, crime free lives of purpose and integrity. Rather than following a medical model or a therapeutic model, we’ve developed an educational model to solve social problems. We teach people to find and develop their strengths rather than only focusing on their problems.

Rather than solving one issue at a time (e.g., drugs or job skills) we believe that all aspects of a person’s life interact, and all people must interact legitimately and successfully with others to make their lives work. Delancey Street is therefore a total learning center in which residents learn (and teach) academics, vocational skills, and personal, interpersonal, practical and social survival skills. We believe the best way to learn is to teach; and that helping others is an important way to earn self-reliance. Person A helps person B and person A gets better.

Delancey Street functions as an extended family, a community in which every member helps the others with no staff of experts, no “program approach”. Everyone is both a giver and a receiver in an “each-one-teach-one” process.

Economic development and entrepreneurial boldness are central to our model’s financial self-sufficiency and to teaching residents self-reliance and life skills.

Delancey Street is value-based in a strong traditional family value system stressing the work ethic, mutual restitution, personal and social accountability and responsibility, decency, integrity and caring for others in a pro bono publico approach.